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Ballet: All around the neighborhood

David Lyman, Enquirer contributor;
9:49 a.m. EDT April 20, 2014

Abigail Morwood, member of the Cincinnati Ballet’s corps de ballet and senior soloist Patric Palkens dance across Vine Street at the intersection of 12th Street. The scene is part of the ballet’s recent video promoting its April 25-26 performances with the band Over the Rhine.
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The video lasts just two minutes and five seconds, including credits.

But in that 2:05, Cincinnati Ballet not only effectively promotes its upcoming performances with the band Over the Rhine – April 25-26 at the Aronoff – but it also offers a fanciful mini-travelogue of the company's home neighborhood, Over-the-Rhine.

As videos go, this one, danced to Over the Rhine's "Gonna Let My Soul Catch My Body," is pretty straightforward. Two company dancers, senior soloist Patric Palkens and corps de ballet member Abigail Morwood, stroll out of the ballet's Central Parkway studios and set out on a Saturday morning adventure.

They cavort on the lawn at Washington Park and do a little duet on the bandstand there. Morwood carefully tiptoes along a newly laid streetcar track on Elm Street. They stop for coffee – and a quick smooch – at Coffee Emporium. And on and on it goes, with cameo appearances of the sidewalks outside Senate and Japp's Since 1879 and an up-close view of a pair of the area's more splashy murals. There's even a quick homage to the Beatles' much-imitated "Abbey Road" cover art.

The video was the brainchild of a pair of ballet staffers, marketing assistant Leyla Shokoohe and box office assistant Adam Lawrence. Online videos aren't new, by any means. But with a videographer/editor/director of Lawrence's ability on staff – he started last May – videos have played an increasingly integral part of the ballet's marketing strategy.

"Our art form is so visual," says Allie Honebrink, the ballet's director of marketing and communications. "What we're selling is movement. It's hard to tell the story or show what our next production is like with just still images and words. This is a way to communicate that is closer to the art form itself."

Currently, there are more than 40 videos on the company's YouTube channel. But most of those consist of choreographer or dancer interviews interspersed with rehearsal footage.

What Shokoohe and Lawrence were proposing was more adventurous. There would be no voiceover, no hard sell. You wouldn't learn the performance dates until the video's final seconds.

Yes, they hope the video sells tickets. But just as important to the ballet, it gives viewers a sense that this is an arts organization that is not rarified or unapproachable. Instead, the company is portrayed as youthful and optimistic, able to find happiness at every turn as they gallivant around the city's most vibrant urban community. Who wouldn't want to spend time with this company?

"I think you watch this and get the idea that the dancers are part of the city, just like you and me," says Shokoohe. "Most of our staff is fairly young. And so are the dancers. Our generation, our peers are in Over the Rhine. It's where we flock to. It's fun and it's alive. And I think this video represents that."

Not to get too serious about this lighthearted video, but if you read between the lines, you'll see an unwritten statement of philosophy, too. Cincinnati Ballet, like every major arts organization, is working hard to find ways to attract younger patrons without alienating the ones who have supported its efforts for decades.

Obviously, this video can't do it alone. But it is so good-hearted and has such a positive spirit to it, it's hard to imagine a patron of any age finding it anything other than appealing.

That's part of what made Morwood and Palkens so eager to be a part of it, too.

"It sounded like it would be so much fun," says Morwood, who is completing her fifth season with the company. "Patric and I both love doing dancing and acting on film. And we have a really great chemistry together onstage. This sounded like one of those opportunities you'd regret if you didn't try it."

And so it was on April 5, when the group met at the Cincinnati Ballet Center at 8 a.m.

It was just 40 degrees. Not optimum dancing weather.

"It did get warmer," the ever-optimistic Morwood pointed out.

And so it was that for the next four hours, they wound their way through Over-the-Rhine, pounding out music on a boom box, coping with pedestrians, negotiating with work crews and even figuring out how to deal with a few dozen runners that started warming up at the edge of Washington Park.

"We considered asking them to move," says Honebrink. "But in the end, we decided, 'This is OTR. There are people in the park.' So they're in the video, too."

Will it sell more tickets? Probably. In its first four days, it was already among the ballet's three most-viewed videos. As its distribution has begun to spread through email, Facebook and Twitter, the buzz about it is already growing.

"These performances with Over the Rhine are so different from anything else we've done this year," says Lawrence. "So I wanted whatever video we decided to make to reflect that. I think it does."

How can it miss? The budget was under $25, just enough to purchase a few coffees to warm their hands.

"We're a very scrappy team," says Shokoohe. "And this is a good place for breeding ideas. Sometimes they don't work. But most of the time, they turn out well. Like this one." ¦